State v. Stokes

• Citation: 352 S.E.2d 653,319 N.C. 1
• Decision Date: 03 February 1987
• Docket Number: No. 553A83,553A83
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of North Carolina
• Parties: STATE of North Carolina v. Freddie Lee STOKES.

Page 653

352 S.E.2d 653

319 N.C. 1

STATE of North Carolina v. Freddie Lee STOKES.

No. 553A83.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Feb. 3, 1987.

Lacy H. Thornburg, Atty. Gen. by Joan H. Byers, Sp. Deputy Atty. Gen., Raleigh, for the state.

Arnold Smith, Wilmington, for defendant appellant.

EXUM, Chief Justice.

This appeal is from a new sentencing hearing ordered by this Court in State v. Stokes, 308 N.C. 634, 304 S.E.2d 184 (1983), at which a death sentence was imposed. Defendant contends: (1) The court lacked jurisdiction over him; (2) there was error in admitting his out-of-court statement; (3) the evidence was insufficient to support the "especially heinous" aggravating circumstance and submission of an Enmund issue ¹ to the jury; and (4) his death sentence was excessive or disproportionate when considered against sentences imposed in similar cases. We find no error in the proceeding. We agree that the death sentence is excessive and disproportionate. The death sentence is, therefore, set aside and a sentence of life imprisonment is imposed.

I.

On 28 December 1981 between 6 and 6:30 p.m., four young men, Ricky Benbow, Lorenzo Thomas, James Murray, and defendant here, Freddie Stokes, all in their late teens or early twenties, conspired to and did rob Kauno Lehto at his Wilmington Bonded Warehouse. ² In the course of the robbery Lehto was beaten severely on and about the head. The blows fractured his skull and caused hemorrhaging into his brain from which Lehto died some fourteen hours after the attack.

In January 1982 Thomas gave a statement to Wayne Norris, a Wilmington police investigator, implicating himself and his three accomplices in the crimes committed against Lehto. Information provided by Thomas resulted in the arrests of Benbow, Murray and Stokes. Ultimately Thomas pled guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment. Benbow pled guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced initially to life imprisonment but on appeal won a new sentencing hearing. At his new sentencing hearing Benbow, on 1 May 1984, was sentenced to twenty-five years' imprisonment. ³

Both Murray and Stokes entered pleas of not guilty; at separate trials both were convicted by juries of first degree felony murder, armed robbery and felonious larceny. In both cases judgment was arrested on the armed robbery conviction; defendants were sentenced to ten years' imprisonment on the larceny conviction, and sentencing hearings were conducted on the first degree murder conviction. In Murray's case the jury recommended that he be sentenced to life imprisonment ⁴ and judgment was entered accordingly. This Court found no error in Murray's trial. State v. Murray, 310 N.C. 541, 543, 313 S.E.2d, 523, 526 (1984). ⁵

A.

As for Stokes, the defendant here, the jury at his first trial recommended as punishment for the murder a sentence of death, and judgment was entered accordingly. State v. Stokes, 308 N.C. at 641, 304 S.E.2d at 187. This Court found no error in the guilt phase of Stokes' trial but, finding error in the sentencing phase, ordered that a new sentencing hearing be conducted. Id. at 658, 304 S.E.2d at 199. At the new sentencing hearing, from which the present appeal is taken, the jury again recommended a sentence of death, which was imposed.

On Stokes' first appeal, he contended, and this Court agreed, that he was entitled to have Enmund issues submitted to the jury before the jury considered the issues mandated by our capital sentencing statute, N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000. In Enmund the United States Supreme Court considered a Florida death sentence imposed on Enmund, who had participated with two others in the burglary-murder of an elderly couple. The two others had actually entered the couple's home where they murdered the victim. Enmund drove the getaway car. Enmund was convicted of felony murder as an aider and abettor, or principal in the second degree. Because there was no proof "that Enmund killed or attempted to kill, ... [or] intended or contemplated that life would be taken ...," the Supreme Court concluded Enmund's death sentence was excessive under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782, 801, 102 S.Ct. 3368, 3378, 73 L.Ed.2d 1140, 1154 (1982).

At Stokes' first trial the state's evidence, briefly summarized, was as follows: Lorenzo Thomas testified that Ricky Benbow, in the presence of James Murray and defendant, told Thomas that Benbow, Murray and defendant were going to Lehto's warehouse to rob Lehto; Benbow asked Thomas to be a lookout and Thomas agreed. Thomas later observed Murray and defendant struggling with the victim on a ramp leading to one of the warehouse's doors. Benbow was at the bottom of the ramp. Murray, Benbow and defendant left the scene in Lehto's car with defendant driving. The state also offered defendant's out-of-court statement. According to this statement defendant acted as lookout while Benbow and Thomas went to the warehouse. There Thomas struck Lehto, and Thomas and Benbow robbed Lehto of Lehto's car keys and money.

Defendant, himself, testified that he had no part in the crimes at all and offered evidence of an alibi.

The trial court instructed the jury that Stokes could be found guilty of first degree murder on the theory that he actually struck the fatal blows or on the theory that, as a lookout for other accomplices, he was an aider and abettor. The jury returned a general verdict of guilty without specifying upon which of these theories it relied.

On Stokes' first appeal, this Court concluded that defendant was entitled to a new sentencing hearing at which special issues required by Enmund would be submitted and answered by the jury. The Court noted that, unlike Enmund, there was enough evidence from which a jury could find that Stokes himself inflicted the fatal blows; therefore Stokes was not entitled, as Enmund was, to have his death sentence vacated as a matter of law. Stokes' out-of-court statement, however, offered by the state, was some evidence to the contrary, tending to show defendant at most acted as a lookout for other accomplices. This created an evidentiary conflict on the question of the extent of Stokes' participation in the murder--a conflict which, under Enmund, must be resolved by the jury favorably to the state before Stokes could be sentenced to death. The Court ordered a new sentencing hearing at which the following issues would be submitted to and answered by the jury as the Court directed:

1. Did defendant deliver the fatal blows which caused the victim's death?

2. If not, did defendant, while acting as an aider and abettor, attempt to kill, intend to kill, or contemplate that life would be taken during the commission of the felony?

Of course, defendant and the State will be permitted to offer competent evidence pertinent to the resolution of these issues.

If the jury should answer either of the above-stated questions 'yes,' then the jury would proceed to hear competent evidence concerning the aggravating and mitigating circumstances and return its recommendation as to whether defendant's punishment should be imprisonment for life or the death sentence. However, if the jury should answer both issues 'no,' it would return a recommendation of life imprisonment.

State v. Stokes, 308 N.C. at 651-52, 304 S.E.2d at 195.

On Stokes' first appeal this Court also concluded there was error in failing to submit the following statutory mitigating circumstances, timely requested by defendant, because there was evidence from which a jury could reasonably find their existence: ⁶ (1) Defendant was under the influence of a mental or emotional disturbance, (f)(2); (2) defendant's capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was impaired, (f)(6); and (3) defendant's participation in the capital felony was relatively minor, (f)(4). The Court also concluded the following nonstatutory mitigating circumstances, timely requested by defendant, should be submitted at defendant's new sentencing hearing if there was evidence to support them because a jury could reasonably find them to have mitigating value: (1) Defendant in his formative years was subjected to cruelty and abuse by his parents; (2) defendant in his formative years was subjected to mental abuse by his parents. State v. Stokes, 308 N.C. at 654-57, 304 S.E.2d at 198.

B.

Defendant's new sentencing hearing, from which the instant appeal is taken, was, according to our direction, conducted in two phases. The first phase was directed to Enmund issues. In this phase the state offered essentially the same evidence it had offered in the guilt phase of defendant's first trial. The state's key witness was, again, Lorenzo Thomas, who testified as follows: On the day of the crime Ricky Benbow approached him and said, "I'd like for you [Thomas] to be a lookout man while we go up to the Wilmington Bonded Warehouse and take some money from the old man." James Murray and defendant were with Benbow. Thomas never replied but he did join the other three, all of whom were prior acquaintances. Defendant "had a stick in his hand, and Murray, he had something up his arm, but I really couldn't see what it was, but to me, it looked like some kind of object." The stick in defendant's hand was 16 to 18 inches long. ⁷ Thomas walked with the others to the Wilmington Bonded Warehouse where he was to "[b]e the lookout man." At the warehouse Thomas observed Benbow at the foot of the ramp and Murray and Stokes on either side of a bay door to which the ramp led. Thomas then walked around the area for about five minutes. He returned to a position where he could observe the ramp. He saw Benbow "still standing at the foot of the ramp, ... Murray and ... Stokes was [sic] bent over; looked like some type of struggle to me.... I couldn't say what was going on because I wasn't there; I was on the other side of the street."...